Half of enterprises will have deployed IoT by this time next year

New analysis by 451 Research indicates that enterprises will ramp up their adoption of IoT next year, but anticipates troubles ahead on communication protocols, security, data management – and initiating business process change.

In its 2016 IoT Preview Report, the market research firm runs its eye over the key challenges in the emerging Internet of Things market, and finds that the key challenges and opportunities are as follows:

Business process changes will continue to be the largest barrier to IoT adoption.

Communication protocols at the edge will remain fragmented.

LTE-M timing gap and new LPWAN upstarts will force the hand of operators.

The volume and management of data generated by ‘things’ will continue to present new opportunities and challenges to storage, cloud, analytics and visualization vendors.

Pricing for IoT components is rapidly declining, bringing IoT deployments into reach for a larger audience.

Security of IoT continues to be a source of major concern for early IoT adopters as they connect previously unconnected industrial ‘OT’ systems.

The good news, however, is that while 451 recognises IoT has “reached an all-time high of hype and hyperbole”, production deployments are now becoming reality.

The firm says that these range from industrial automation and enterprise to fleet and automotive applications to the wild world of the consumer market. Increasing percentages of organisations plan to evaluate and deploy IoT technologies in the coming year.

Fifteen percent of the large enterprises surveyed byStudy have already deployed some form of IoT, while another 31 percent plan to do so in the next 6-12 months.

Analysts also point out that the IoT market is a hotbed of M&A activity, with more than $23 billion spent in 94 IoT-related transactions in the last 12 months, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase, a database of more than 44,000 technology M&A transactions across 650 industry segments.